Thursday, December 14, 2006

Game Night at the Condo

This week we had nine show up. Four of us were there early, so we started right up. The other five decided to play Power Grid, and basically spent the evening on just that. The upstairs crew played 3 lighter games. I had brought Perikles with me, but one player was just sick enough that, after we had set it up, he decided he couldn't handle something that heavy.

Terra NovaFirst time for everyone but me. I told them this game is nasty, but I don't think everyone believed just how nasty until they got screwed the first time. Green had a 30-point section that was all but closed off, blocked only by his own man. Red closed it off outside with 2 extra terrain types, scoring only 12 points. I got a man closed into a single hex.

TriasMy first time. I've looked at this game a few times before. It's better than I expected. I really love the drift and swim mechanisms, and the simple, yet powerful, 4 action points. I didn't see some tactics until others used them to great effect, like using drift to save swimmers, or sinking your own dinos so you can use the swim action (1 swim AP moves up to 3 dinos which would normally cost 3 move AP's). I might have to get this one.

O Zoo Le MioFirst time for everyone. I ignored this game for too long because it looked like a kid's game. The flag mechanism is brilliant. Each player has a flag on a flagpole. Every time there's a tie, the highest flag wins and gets moved to the bottom. This is a non-trivial game with some really tough decisions. Buying the right tiles can be much more profitable than buying the most.

SubbuteoOnce again, Subbuteo closed the night out. We played two 15-minute halves. My opponent scored 2 goals in the first half, and I was unable to catch up. The goals weren't particularly fast shots; I just can't seem to make my eyes differentiate between the ball and the man as they fork left and right.